by Shirley Jump
Then he did exactly that again, this time taking no quarter with her, pouring the passion that had built up inside him for years into their embrace. Mariabella let out a mew, and grasped his shirt, curling her fists into his back. He hoisted her up onto the counter, his hands roaming her waist, her back, into her hair, unable to touch enough of her at once. He wanted more, he wanted all of her, right here, right now, but instead did the right thing and pulled back with a groan.
Her lips were swollen and red, her chest heaving with rapid breaths. “We…we probably should not…”
“Why not? Because you’re a princess? I don’t care about that.” And as the words left his mouth, he realized he didn’t. She was the same woman now, as she had been yesterday. Okay, so they’d have a few more bumps in their relationship to work around, but he could deal with that. He was alive again, for the first time in forever, and Jake refused to let that go, over something as small as royalty. “I told you, I loved Uccelli when I visited the country. Surely we could find a way to make this work.”
“It is more than loving the country, Jake.” She shook her head. “Someday, I will be queen. You would never be acceptable to my father as a king.” She hung her head. “I am sorry, but duty must come first.”
He let out a gust. “Duty? You sound like me now. I’ve spent five years putting duty and work ahead of living and now that I’ve met you, I’ve finally begun to realize what I’m missing out on. If you end this now, you will be missing out, too.”
Outside, the storm had abated, and the wind stopped its assault on the little cottage. Mother Nature had quieted her war with the coast of Harborside, restoring it to its natural equilibrium.
She gripped the countertop. In her eyes, he saw resignation. “As a royal, my world is almost a…cage of expectations. You do not understand. I cannot have the life others can. I just cannot. Please make this easier on both of us, Jake, and—” she paused, tears filling her green eyes like rain puddling in a lake “—leave.”
He stood his ground. He couldn’t leave, not until he had the answer he’d come for, the one that had driven him out of the bar, and into her arms, the one answer he hadn’t found in her artwork or in her kiss. “Why are you hiding here? And I don’t mean just hiding from your name. I mean really hiding.”
“What are you talking about? I am living my life.”
“You talk about your life being a cage in Uccelli, and yet you’ve made a cage in Harborside, too.”
“I live freely here.”
“As yourself?”
“Of course not.” She threw up her hands. “What, do you think this is all some fairy tale? That I can just be a princess and live happily ever after?”
“Why not?”
“It does not work that way. Not for me.”
“Then how free are you, really, if you’re afraid to fall in love? Afraid to be yourself?” He plucked a closed daisy out of the bouquet he had given her, and held it out. “You’re like this flower. Shut off, tucked among the others. No one knows the power you hold, because you’re just…hiding. You could change this town, make real changes, as Princess Mariabella, instead of just Mariabella Romano. You could bring it the kind of publicity it needs, the sort of business that would help these owners survive the other months of the year. And yet—”
She wrapped her arms around herself, anger spiking the color in her face. “And yet what?”
“You choose to be selfish and protect yourself instead of helping the people who have helped you.”
“I am doing the least selfish thing possible. Putting this town ahead of everything that matters to me.”
Jake laid the single flower on the table, beside one of Mariabella’s sketches of a bird in flight. “Are you? Or are you doing the easiest thing possible?”
She advanced on him, her green eyes ablaze with frustration. “Who are you to say that to me? When all you have done since you have arrived in this town is take the easy road? Followed the company line? Take your own risks, Jake Lattimore, and then tell me how to live my life.”
He didn’t respond. They’d said it all. Jake turned and left. The flower laid on the table, forgotten and wilting.
CHAPTER TEN
JAKE jerked awake, threw back the thick down comforter and got to his feet. Overnight, frost had coated the windows, blocking the view with a lacy spiderweb of white. Didn’t matter. He didn’t need to see Harborside to sketch out the plan in his head.
He crossed to the small desk in the corner of his room at the Seaside Inn, drew a pad of paper out of the briefcase sitting on the floor and began to write. At first, full sentences, then, as the frenzy to get it all down overtook him, short bullets, single words, just enough to jog his memory later.
A half hour later, Jake sat back and read over the pages he had composed. The board would undoubtedly think he was crazy. But this…
This would work.
He knew it. Deep in his gut, in that core knot that drove his best decisions, he knew, just knew, this was the decision that would make everyone happy. The company. The town. And most of all—
The princess.
A grin took over his face, the feeling of joy spreading through his chest, his veins. The emotion was so foreign, he nearly didn’t recognize it. All these years, his heart had been as frozen as the icicles dangling from the peaks outside, and now—
The fiery woman from Uccelli had brought about a spring thaw. For the first time in forever, Jake imagined a different future. One with someone else in it.
One with Mariabella curled up in his arms, in front of the fireplace on Christmas Day. If he could make this idea work, maybe he could make that work, too.
She’d been right about him, damn it. And it felt real good to admit it.
His cell phone rang, and he flipped it out. “Dad! I was just about to call you. I’ve got an idea you have to hear.”
“There was nothing on the fax machine this morning. No overnight delivery waiting for me. Nothing.” His father’s voice held a mixture of worry and disappointment. “We need this, Jake. Where are the real estate agreements for Harborside?”
“I’m working on it, Dad. Listen—”
His father sighed. “The board is pushing for me to hire an outsider.”
While the mouse was away, the cats plotted. Jake shouldn’t have been surprised. The board had always considered him, as the heir, nothing more than a nepotism appointment. “Don’t worry about it. I have an idea for this town that can be great. Remember what you used to tell me about the old days, back when you started the company?”
“What do you mean?”
“The first resort you built. That one in New Jersey.” Jake waited, allowing the memory a moment to travel across the phone line.
“You mean the inn? The one I took you to when you were—”
“Seven. And eight. And nine, because I begged you to.”
His father chuckled, and something heavy that had been carried for so long in Lawrence Lattimore’s heart seemed to flow out in that sound. “You loved that place.”
“Everyone loved it.”
“I have a lot of great memories of that place,” his father said. “You and I, we used to take the rowboat out, remember? There was that great fishing hole, the one just you and I knew about. We had more than one dinner we caught ourselves from that place.”
“I remember, Dad.”
“And the hiking. Saw your first deer in those woods. You were six.” His father chuckled. “I think you were more scared of it, than it was of you.”
Jake laughed. “I remember that, too.”
His father sighed. “It was too bad we couldn’t have made that property more profitable. I hated selling it.”
“Maybe if we’d handled the inn differently, Dad. Looked at the property from different angles. I think now, with some experience under our belts, we could turn a profit. I had some ideas this morning—”
“Jake, the time for inns like that has passed. Now everyone wants those fancy
resorts. Cater to your every whim. Live like the rich do.”
“Not everyone wants that, Dad. Some people want the simple life. To feel like…” Jake crossed to the window. He rubbed at the frosted pane with his palm, enough to open up a tiny view of the snowy street below. The garland hung between the street poles, the bows waving in the breeze, the neighbors heading to their shops, waving to one another. “To feel like they’ve gone home.”
“When they go on vacation? Not anymore. I wish it wasn’t so, but that’s the reality of this business. The board says—”
Jake let out a gust. “Think outside the box, Dad. You used to do that, remember?” The Lawrence Lattimore who had founded the company had been a man who charged into deals, who thought with his gut, not with a team of accountants. But as the years wore on, and his father had had to report to more and more people, he’d become less like that, and more of a conformist in business.
“I wish I could. Those days, they were great, but…” His father’s sigh seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. “They’re over. It’s time for me to put my feet up and watch from the sidelines.”
Jake could hear the sadness in his father’s voice. “What if you didn’t have to? What if you could have the company you used to?”
“I don’t live like that anymore. It’s too crazy. Too risky.”
Jake grinned. “Yeah, maybe it is. But I’m going to make it work right here. In Harborside.”
“Son, you do that, and you’ll ruin this company. We need something powerful. Something big, something that will take Lattimore back up to the top. Use the proven formula, Jake. Trust the board, not the ramblings of an old man who should be retired. We just can’t take a risk. Not now.”
“No, Dad. That’s where you’re wrong.” Jake turned away from the window, and for the first time since he’d arrived in this town, felt as if everything was going to fall into place exactly right. “We need to go back to where we used to be, lead with our gut, not with the bean counters. That’s our ticket to the top.”
His father let out a sigh. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, Jake. Get this deal done, and fax me the deeds so we can break ground before February. That’s the only present I want.” His father hung up.
Jake would prove his father’s theory wrong. One way or another. And in doing so, maybe he’d help Lawrence Lattimore find the business fire that had long ago died away.
The suitcase lay empty on Mariabella’s bed.
Every item she put in, she took back out. She couldn’t seem to pack anything. Not her jeans, not her sweaters, not her makeup, not her hairbrush. She clutched the plane ticket, sat on the edge of her bed and cried.
She couldn’t do it. Simply couldn’t do it. Just the thought of wearing that crown for the rest of her life made her want to run and hide. She looked out the window, at the view that had become as much a part of her as her own hand, and let out a sigh.
Then she made the call.
It took ten minutes before she was connected to the king, a flurry of activity, with people whispering on the other end, the rumors flying about the princess being in contact after her long, unexplained absence. “All I want to hear is when your flight is arriving so I can send Reynaldo to pick you up,” her father said when he finally answered. No greeting. No “how are you.”
Mariabella took in a breath, and steeled herself. “I’m not coming back, Papa.”
She could have cut through the long, icy silence with a razor blade. “You will. I command it.”
A year ago, a day ago, Mariabella would have backed down and agreed with her father. He was the king, after all, and she had learned from the day she was born never to disagree with the king.
Her gaze strayed to the Gerbera daisies, and her resolve steeled. She had to do the right thing. Not just for her, but for her country. Jake was right. She’d been hiding too long, from her true self. From what she really wanted. She’d played at being an ordinary woman, and never really done it.
How could she, if the entire time she’d lived in Harborside, she’d been living a lie? How could she ever know if she could be the kind of woman she wanted to be, unless she stepped up and did it as herself? As Mariabella Santaro?
“I can’t,” she said. “I won’t make a good queen and you know it, Papa. My heart isn’t in it. I don’t think it ever was.”
He snorted. “You think this position is about heart? It’s duty, Mariabella. Now stop this silliness and return at once.”
“You already have a daughter who wants to be queen, father. Let Allegra step up to the throne. And let me have my life. If you have ever loved me, even a little, then please, please, Papa—” her voice caught “—let me go.”
Then she hung up the phone, and let the tears take over.
She was now a woman without a family or a country. But at least she was finally and truly free.
Jake had his argument ready before Mariabella even opened the door. “I know I’m the last person in the world you want to see right now, but I have a gift for you.”
“A gift?”
He grinned. “It’s Christmas. People give each other gifts.”
She hesitated, and for a second, he thought she might close the door before he could talk to her. “Jake, Christmas isn’t for two more days.”
“So sue me for being early.” He handed her a box, wrapped in bright red paper and topped with a white bow. “I just wanted to show you that I thought about what you said yesterday. And that you were right.”
Despite everything, Mariabella smiled, and waved him into her house. One hurdle passed. Maybe there was hope for more. “Do you want some coffee?”
“I’d love some.” Hell, he’d drink baby formula if it meant seeing her again.
She put down the box, then went into the kitchen and returned with two mugs of coffee and a small plate of raspberry thumbprint cookies. Then she sat down across from him to unwrap the gift. The bow slid easily off the top, fluttering to the floor. The box lid lifted off, then Mariabella tugged out the tissue-wrapped item inside and peeled away the white paper covering it. “This is…a dollhouse?”
“A mock-up. Of what I want to build here.”
She glanced down again and saw, not a monster of a hotel, like the one he had shown her in New York, but something closer to the inn they had visited in New Jersey. “It looks like…a house.”
He grinned and nodded. “That’s the plan. I want to put on a big front porch and a long, wide back porch. Lots of chairs, for looking out at the view of the ocean, then benches in the front so people can greet the locals when they walk by. Dinners will be served family style so that when you come and stay here, you’ll be able to sit and get to know the other people who are staying in Harborside. There will be boating and swimming. No noisy Jet Skis. We’ll have rooms designed with families in mind, and lots of family activities planned. It will be like the vacations from the old days, but taken up a few notches.”
“You sound excited.”
“I am.” His smile widened. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about for hours and hours. I had to drive to Boston this morning and pay a shop to create this—don’t even ask me how much it cost—because I couldn’t wait to show you my vision for Harborside.”
She turned the mock-up around, then lifted it up and peeked inside the tiny windows, the itty-bitty door. She ran a finger down the roof line, along the slender poles of the porch. “This is perfect. I can just see it in town. It matches the buildings we already have, and even looks a little like the lighthouse, the way the posts curve on the porch here, and the colors that you used.”
“I know.”
She touched his hand, and fire exploded in her gut. “I did not think you noticed anything on the tour we took.”
“It wasn’t easy. I was a little distracted by my tour guide.” His hand came up to cup her jaw, thumb teasing at her bottom lip. “More than a little distracted.”
“All I did was show you some whales.”
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br /> “You showed me far more than that, Mariabella.” Her name slid off his tongue in a whisper, just before he closed the gap and kissed her. Then Jake drew back, and took her hand in his. “If you give me a chance, Mariabella, and support this, I promise, it will work out for the town, for you, for all the residents. This will be a resort that will fit Harborside. That world we saw in the room at the top of the stairs, that’s the kind of world I want here. One where people come and they feel like they’ve come…”
“Home,” she finished, the world escaping her on a breath. She glanced down again at the tiny building and saw in it the exact kind of vacation place she would have chosen. A retreat, a haven.
It was, as she’d said, home. Here in Harborside. She couldn’t imagine it anywhere else.
“Exactly. When people look out the windows of their room, I want them to see the real Harborside. The one that you love.” He tipped her chin until her gaze met his. “The one that you’ve taught me to love, too.”
“You…love this town?”
“Lighthouse, boardwalk and all. It took me a while, but it grew on me.” He grinned. “It helped that it had such a beautiful ambassador.”
“Oh, I am not—”
“You are. Don’t sell yourself short. From all accounts, from everyone I’ve talked to, you’ve done more for this town in the last year than anyone. Your enthusiasm has brought it back to life.”
“But it has not been enough.” She gestured out the window. “All your numbers said so, and so did you. I could have done more.”
“But if you do, you’ll give up part of your life,” he said. “I had no right to say that yesterday. I didn’t think about what the publicity would do to you. To the privacy that is so important to you.” He laid a hand on top of the mock-up of the future resort. “This, however, can make the final difference for Harborside. It can fill in the financial gaps, without you having to be Princess Mariabella. You can be just Mariabella, as you’ve always been.”